The Befores and The Beginnings
by MizDazey
Summary: How did the Breakfast Club come to be in detention that Saturday? But more than that, how did they become the people that they are? A brain, a jock, a criminal, a princess and a basketcase...
1. Chapter 1

**Claire Standish: "Do you think we'll all end up like our parents?" **

_A Criminal _

His birthday was on Tuesday, but he's not yet sure how he feels about being 8. For example, he's not completely confident he knows where the 'g' and where the 'h' go in the word itself, and last year, in first grade, when they were learning how to write their numbers, he had a really motherfucking hard time forcing his pencil to make the interlocking loops of the 8. So, all of that doesn't exactly guarantee that 8 will be a banner year for Johnny Bender.

But, whatever, 8 is _clearly_ cooler than 7, and, and also, his 8th birthday party might have been the best birthday he can remember, mostly because his 7th just didn't happen since nobody really had money for cake or presents that year and his 6th was a miserable rainy day which pissed his dad off so badly they all just sort of tiptoed around and ate cake on the sly, and he can't really remember much before that one.

So, it was probably his best birthday ever, but that's not exactly impressive, and it's not something he's truly excited about, because the fact that it was the best so clearly highlights the fact that he doesn't have a lot to compare it to, and that blows.

(His mother tried, but the pitiful cake and the recycled New Years decorations and the Happy Birthday song that had to be quickly sung during the commercial of the Bears game because otherwise his dad wouldn't participate was almost worse than nothing at all.)

Sometimes, he feels like his family is like a cheap TV show; like they're all actors who are just pretending to like each other, and they're doing a really shitty job at it. His family always feels like they're trying to be like other families, but the effort is half-assed at best, and so Johnny gets a box cake and a birthday party during halftime of a football game, and that's supposed to be good enough.

And it's not like most of his friends at school and in his neighborhood are doing _that_ much better with their own families, and also when his mom pulled the cake out of the fridge she looked so proud of herself, so Johnny hugged her and helped her wash the dishes when the half-assed birthday party stumbled to a halt after the football game came back on.

After everything had been more or less cleaned up and put away, Johnny's mother winked at him, and, peering into the family room to make sure her husband was absorbed in the game, led Johnny outside to the garage.

His mother fumbled with the latches on the door, and Johnny watched her hands tremble and bit the inside of his mouth as hard as he could, to stop himself from saying anything that would ruin her happiness on this one stupid day. Finally, she got the door open, and Johnny blinked in surprise when he saw the bike.

It was old, and kind of rusted, but at least it was a boy's bike and the brakes worked and it didn't have any streamers or anything attached to it with superglue. His mother beamed at him, and grabbed him in a whole new hug, and whispered "Happy Birthday, my favorite little man."

And Johnny hugged her back, because it definitely wasn't the shittiest bike in the whole world, and because she was trying, and because everything didn't always have to be so hard and sullen and unforgiving. So, he got a half-assed party and a half-assed bike for his 8th birthday, and it really wasn't a terrible day.

* * *

><p>But that was Tuesday and today is Friday and Johnny has been 8 for three whole days, and while he deeply appreciates all the trouble his mother must have gone through to find him a bike, it is kind of a piece of shit, and so he has a mission: he's going to make this bike look brand new.<p>

Johnny knows there are cans of black paint in the garage from when his dad painted the kitchen table and chairs for his mom like two years ago, and he figures that if he paints over the rust spots on his bike, it will be almost perfect.

But, the cans of paint are stacked at the very top of the steel shelves that line the garage, and Johnny is the 2nd tallest kid in his second grade class, but there is no way he can reach the paint by himself. He pauses, hands wrapped around the highest shelf he can reach, and looks back over his shoulder at the house.

It's just the middle of the afternoon, but right now his mother is watching her soaps and nursing a beer or two, and she might come help him but she also might be really pissed at the interruption, so he decides to do this all by himself. Because, see, he's 8 now.

So, he steps up onto the first shelf and pauses, waiting to see if the shelves will collapse or if anything will tumble free and shatter on the concrete floor. But the shelves are firmly anchored, so Johnny lifts himself up to the next step, grinning madly as he climbs. (He's always wanted to monkey his way up these shelves, but his father has always grabbed his arm and yanked him down before he got higher than the first step. So, this is climb is doubly exciting, for its danger and for its illicitness.)

The sharp edges of the metal shelves scrape the thin skin of his stomach as he hoists himself to the highest shelf, and his shoulders burn as he wraps his hand around the handle of the closest paint can and yanks.

The can sticks for a second, years of dried paint gluing it in place, then with a screechy _riiiip _jerks toward Johnny, swinging at his face. He ducks down below the shelf and lets go of the can, suddenly off-balance and almost-falling. The can thunders past his head and jumps over the edge of the shelf, shooting past him, and Johnny, still clinging to the highest shelf, doesn't even stretch for it. He watches the paint can fall, horrified at the mess it's going to make, but, in the secret part of him that loves disorder and chaos, delighted by what he knows is coming.

The paint can bounces once and completely explodes; paint launches itself up, down and around the enclosed garage. Globs of black paint splatter the dirty windows and the dusty floor; they soak the corkboard wall of tools and the boxes of Christmas ornaments and winter clothes stacked haphazardly around the garage. It's a huge, horrifying mess, and Johnny just hangs in the middle of it for a minute, fingers pressed against his mouth (to stop himself from laughing or from crying, he isn't sure) and listens to the thick _drip...drip _of black paint puddling in the garage.

There are rags and bottles of turpentine piled under his father's workbench, and Johnny knows that he could take them out and try to clean up some of this mess. He could fix the worst of it, and hide some more of it, and his father might not even notice for a few days, and maybe not even ever. He contemplates that for a minute or two, but isn't really _thrilled _by the idea, or anything.

And, also, he really shouldn't have to rummage around in the garage to find paint to cover up the rust on the piece-of-shit bike his mom bought off the neighbors down the street; he shouldn't have to make his bike safe all by himself- actually, his father shouldn't spend so much money on booze and cigarettes, and should have bought Johnny a better fucking bike for his birthday.

He slowly climbs down, careful of the smears of paints on the shelves that slip and slide under his feet, threatening to send him flying. When he reaches the floor he surveys the mess he's made, and decides that he's going to leave it. Let his dad see it, and let him do what he wants about it. Fuck it. _Fuck him, _Johnny thinks, savoring the hard edges of the word in his brain. _Fuck him. _

And so he walks out of the garage and slams the door shut behind him, and decides to take his shitty bike for an aimless ride around the neighborhood. Maybe see if he can make any more disasters. That would actually probably be kind of fun.

Johnny knows, as he pedals away down the driveway, just thinking about the sheer enormity of the disaster he created, that his dad will be _beyond pissed_. But lots of things can make his dad beyond pissed, and what'll probably happen is this: there will be some yelling and Johnny will learn a new curse word or 12; there might be a slap and a purple bruise as a result, and Johnny will absolutely have to scurry out to the garage and clean it up.

But none of this is unexpected, because this is how Johnny's father has always treated him, and this is how all fathers treat their kids, with a mixture of violence and anger with some humor and incredulity thrown in, at the idea that this ridiculous little person who keeps fucking up and who also keeps needing you is your responsibility.

The streetlights snap on suddenly, the noise echoing through the semi-deserted streets and Johnny, standing up on the pedals in his mostly-inexplicable desire to always go as fast and as recklessly as he can, flinches violently.

Because when his father sees the garage it might not be so bad, but, it also might be terrible. There might be a screaming fight that floods out the windows and into the street and there might be a beating that's so bad that Johnny won't be able to ride his bike or clean the garage for a few days. It's getting harder to tell; his father is drinking more and getting meaner and more pissed over stuff he never would have minded last year.

Johnny doesn't get it: nothing's really changed that would turn his father from a guy who could be kind of an asshole when drunk to a guy that is always a raging, furious asshole, ready to hurt and humiliate at the merest pretext.

Because, they still have the same kind-of-shitty house, his father still has the same kind- of-shitty job, they still eat the same kind-of-shitty food when his mother feels up to cooking. Nothing's really changed.

(And that is mostly the problem: Jack Bender is only getting older and nothing is really getting worse, but nothing is really getting better, either, and Jack can see the parameters of his life closing in on him. But Johnny was only 8 on Tuesday and he sees none of this, but he does understand that if he'd spilled paint in the garage last year, it wouldn't have been so terrible but doing it this year? Things could be bad.)

* * *

><p>"JOHNNY! YOU LITTLE SHIT!" The bellow echoes through the house and Johnny snaps awake, launching himself out from underneath his covers and dashing over to his bedroom door. He can hear his father's footsteps pounding up the stairs, and he takes deep breathes, readying himself for this battle.<p>

The door slams open, and his father is there, hallway light pouring over his shoulders and into Johnny's room. Johnny blinks, hands thrown up in front of his face, and his father grabs his upraised arm and yanks him down the stairs.

They march out to the garage, or rather, his father marches, and Johnny stumbles along after him, wincing as the gravel of their driveway stings his bare feet. The garage lights are blazing, and Johnny sees a group of men huddled outside the open garage door, smoking thick cigars, carrying coolers and card tables and handfuls of poker chips.

Johnny feels like his stomach has sunk down to his knees as he father drags him into the garage and squeezes Johnny's arm so hard Johnny whimpers (under his breath). It's Friday night, which means it's poker night, which means Jack Bender and his friends were supposed to play poker in the Bender garage-his wife won't let him play in the house, because the noxious smoke from their cigars gives her headaches.

They're supposed to play poker in the Bender's garage, but they can't, because thick streaks of black paint cling to the walls and ceiling and floor and windows, and coat every other visible surface, and Jack Bender is screaming in his son's face, gnashing his teeth in his hurricane rage.

Johnny can smell the whiskey seeping from his father's mouth and pores as the man pulls him up on his toes, and he drops his head, fear making his joints feel loose and unattached to the rest of him. Alcohol, especially a lot of alcohol, makes his dad unpredictable, and Johnny can already feel bruises blooming under his father's huge, squeezing hands.

The slap reverberates throughout the garage, bouncing off the paint-spattered walls, and Johnny falls, barely getting his hands around to catch himself. He sprawls on the floor for a minute, letting himself get used to the sharp, slicing pain in his mouth and the ache in his upper arms. His father stands over him, whole body trembling with fury, and Johnny closes his eyes as his father's hands descend.

He's yanked up and almost leaves the ground completely, and his father almost pulls his shoulder from his socket, so tightly is he clenching Johnny's arm. His father lunges forward, and there's a gasp and the beginnings of a shout or a protest from one of his father's friends standing in the driveway, but Johnny has his eyes closed and isn't looking. He doesn't want to know what's coming. He's never before seen his father this mad. He's never before been this terrified.

His father jerks his arm up over his head, and he hears the hissing noise against his skin before he feels the searing pain. His eyes rip open and he stares at his father, who is grinding something dark and crumbling into Johnny's forearm, twisting and stabbing until the bones of Johnny's elbow grind together.

His father drops his arm and backs up and Johnny sees the dark thing fall from his father's fingers; it is the remnants of a cigar and _holy fuck _his arm hurts and _oh shit _did that really just happen to him? There is a sliver of regret in his father's glazed eyes, but it is not at all in Johnny's nature to let people apologize when they've hurt him so he cradles his arm against his chest and sucks in great gulps of air, and won't look at his father.

Johnny starts back toward the house, ducking his head as he walks by the men who didn't bother to help him, or even to protest, and Johnny's father pushes on his shoulder, but his hands are gentle. "That's what you get, you little shit," he informs his son, but he's actually telling the group of men, and not really Johnny. Johnny hears remorse in his father's voice and feels it in his hands but doesn't turn, doesn't acknowledge it, because his father doesn't deserve Johnny's forgiveness, not while Johnny's arm is burning and bleeding and it feels like the cigar is still pressed against his skin. _Fuck him. _

He throws himself up the stairs, unsteady and shivering, and hesitates outside his mother's room, but in the end decides not to bother. She's passed out and won't wake up until tomorrow. (And he's never sure whose drinking he hates more, because when his father drinks he becomes more present, more dangerous, more likely to hurt someone, but when his mother drinks she is lessened, less present, and isn't likely to do much of anything at all.)

So, he doesn't bother waking his mother because she'll get up tomorrow to the mess her husband and his friends left in the house and the mess her son left in the garage and the mess that is Johnny's arm which hurts like nothing he's ever felt before.

He curls up in bed and listens to his father and friends clink their bottles and light their cigars and deal their cards, their laughter and jokes and loudness which they don't even try to quiet trickling up through his open window. It's his 3rd day of being 8. Being 8 blows.


	2. Chapter 2

**Claire Standish: "Do you think we'll all end up like our parents?"**

_A Basket-Case_

She agonizes for weeks, trying to decide which pieces from her portfolio (and how weird is that, that she can use this grown-up word to refer to her work) she wants to display at the Shermer High School Annual Art Show.

Last month, a month before the installation of the art show, Mrs. Reese, Shermer's art teacher, and possibly Allison's favorite person in the whole world, asked Allison to stay behind after class, and for a few minutes Allison was disappointedly terrified that Mrs. Reese was going to turn out to be just like her other teachers, who often kept her after class to talk at her sadly about her silence and the doodles in the margins of her messy homework.

Mrs. Reese closed the door behind the last of Allison's classmates, and Allison sat silently, hunched on her stool at the drafting table, unwilling to make this conversation easy on Mrs. Reese. But Mrs. Reese, (who was the first teacher who wasn't perturbed or frightened or infuriated by Allison's silence) didn't sigh heavily or rub the bridge of her nose and stare at Allison. Instead, she made chamomile tea on the hot pot at the back of the classroom, and poured Allison a cup in the beautiful porcelain mugs she threw and glazed herself.

Allison didn't really like tea, but she imagined it was the kind of thing artists drank, so she wrapped her graceful, nail-bitten fingers around the mug and inhaled the warm, bitter smell of the tea. She was careful to hold the mug over her lap, to keep it from spilling or staining the huge sheet of paper she had folded into manageable squares on her drafting table. Mrs. Reese put down her own mug, and pointed to Allison's drawings. "May I, Allison?" she asked, and a tiny tremor of pleasure ran up Allison's spine, because Mrs. Reese had _asked_ instead of just reaching out and taking, and also because she had used Allison's name. Often, Mrs. Reese was the only person to say Allison's name on a given day, and on days when Allison didn't have art class, she legitimately felt invisible-unacknowledged and non-existent.

Mrs Reese delicately lifted Allison's drawing paper from the table, and Allison leaned slightly to her left, to let Mrs Reese know that Allison wouldn't mind sharing the space with her, because Mrs. Reese smelled like clay and lavender and thought Allison was an extraordinarily talented artist. Nobody else thought Allison was an extraordinarily talented _anything_.

Carefully, Mrs. Reese unfolded several of the squares, and deliberately examined each of the tiny, complicated charcoal figures that cavorted and twisted around each other in their separate squares. Mrs. Reese was gentle with Allison's work, and her respect for Allison was obvious in this gentility. Allison ducked under her sweep of black hair and glanced sideways at Mrs. Reese, who sat, examining Allison's drawings, mouth pursed in delight.

Mrs. Reese was oldish, and had ashy blonde hair and hands that were always dusted with chalk and charcoal, and she always wore something blue: a scarf, or a ribbon or a pin or a blouse, because, she told her classes, she had grown up in a tiny town on the Maine coast, and she missed the sea so badly.

(Sometimes, Allison thought, she wouldn't mind being Mrs. Reese when she grew up, mostly because Mrs. Reese has the exquisite pleasure of doing art for 8 hours a day, but a little bit because everybody liked Mrs. Reese, and Allison hoped that were she to become a teacher, suddenly, people might like her, too.

But other (darker) days, Allison isn't sure that she could ever teach high school, because that would require her to actually voluntarily enter a high school everyday, to walk the hallways and talk to teachers and watch as bitchy girls and thuggish boys trampled all over the quiet and the meek. If she were to be a teacher, Allison fears (but also, secretly, gleefully anticipates), and she were to see some poor, pathetic girl getting tortured by some bitchy, beautiful bully, she might gouge the bully's eyes out with an x-acto knife. Or something similar.

So, maybe being a teacher is out. Plus, she wants to get out of Shermer as soon as she is 18, and already has lists of places she wants to visit. She wants to go to Kyrgyzstan, Islamabad, the Seychelles and Azerbaijan because she thinks those names are incredible marriages of beautiful sounds and syllables, and she wants to go to Belgium because of the chocolate, Australia because of the kangaroos and the wallabies, and India because of the Bengal tigers, and then finally Paris because of the art. Because, when Allison imagines her future, art is obviously central, but it comes a distant last place behind a few other, more important dreams.)

Suddenly Mrs. Reese fluttered Allison's thick paper, and Allison snapped back to attention, yanking herself away from the daydreams that constantly unfolded inside her mind. Teachers and students and her parents and her psychiatrist told Allison that she was absent-minded, or a freaky loser, or the worst goddamned listener on the planet, or dissociative, but none of those labels were really accurate. It's just that she has better, more vibrant, more wonderful things to think about.

But Allison loves Mrs. Reese, with the kind of fervor that only a semi-feral high school girl can manifest, so she listens intently to her. Always.

"Allison, could you tell me a bit about what you're working on?"

Allison nodded, and for the first time that day, opened her mouth. (It's not that she doesn't like talking, or doesn't want to talk sometimes. It's just that people rarely ask questions worth answering.)

"Well, it's...like high school, I guess. It's a huge blank space, and everyone is crashing into everyone else, and everyone's sh..._problems_ are just overlapping everyone else's, and, yeah." Allison gestured at the edges of the drawing. "That's like a barrier, keeping everyone inside. Because, you have to stay, until you graduate. Which blows, obviously."

Allison blushed, and dropped her head, but she managed to glimpse the interested, understanding smile stretching across Mrs. Reese's face, and her heart ached with happiness. Even in the middle of an Illinois winter, in a drafty classroom, Allison felt warm.

"Allison? I have something I want to ask you..."

* * *

><p>But that was a month ago, and Allison has spent many of the subsequent hours after school closed in her bedroom, or the art room, finishing pieces and paintings, sometimes trashing things she'd been working on for days, desperate to produce something that would live up to the (inexplicable) potential Mrs. Reese saw in her. Allison was the first freshman to be included in the Shermer High Art Show, and what's more, she was going to be a featured artist.<p>

It was crazy, it was miraculous, it was stupendous, it was so beautiful, and Allison carried these good feelings around with her as she moved silently through the halls of Shermer, buttressed against attacks and insults by the gloriousness of her own thoughts, and the magnitude of her own happiness. She had never felt so special, so wanted, in her entire life.

And so, rolling along on the wave of her excitement, she did something colossally stupid: she spent maybe a whole afternoon making art show invitations for her parents, and she let herself imagine that they might attend, that they might see her work and see how proud she was of herself. That they might be proud of her too.

A letter written on Shermer High stationary had gone out to all the parents, obviously, but Allison made her own, personal, hand-lettered invitations, and left them on her parents' pillows a few days before the show opened.

Nobody said anything about it, but this wasn't too unusual, and Allison scoured the trashcans throughout the house, to make sure that her invitations hadn't been thrown away. They hadn't, so that was a start, but, as the days passed, still nobody said anything.

The morning of the show, as Allison climbed into her mother's car to be driven to school, she decided that it was time for Allison-the-artist who, that night, was going to have to talk to a whole bunch of people about her art, to be brave.

They drove silently for a few minutes, until Allison suddenly reached over and snapped off the radio. Her mother flinched slightly, the movement almost invisible under her heavy coat, but perfectly obvious to the daughter who scrutinized her now.

"Mom?" Allison's voice felt raspy, and she took a deep breath before continuing. "Mom, I'm...the featured artist, in the art show, at school, and I really, really want you and dad to come. Please."

Her mother didn't look at her, exactly, because she was driving in a lot of traffic and the roads were very slick, but Allison knew her mother had heard her. She had spoken loud enough to be heard.

"What time is the show, dear?" her mother asked, and Allison clenched her fingers together, feeling hope that she rarely let herself imagine, because most of the time people disappointed you, and it was mostly useless to believe in them. But maybe...

"It's at 6, and it goes until 9:30, but you can come whenever, and I have so much that I want to show you, and I think you'll really like some of it, and I really want you to come, so, please, whenever you and dad want to come, that would be great..." The words poured out of her, more words than she had said to her mother in years, and Allison could see her mother's whole body shift toward the car door, clearly perturbed by the sudden vehemence of Allison.

Furious with herself for her eagerness and her childishness, Allison wanted to rip her tongue from her head, but that would probably really freak her mother out, so, instead, she smiled nicely at the side of her mother's head, and kept her teeth closed for the rest of the drive.

Allison clambered out of the car, but didn't shut her door. She kept her upper body inside the car so her mother couldn't drive away.

Her mother looked nervous. "Do you need a ride, at a particular time, dear?"

"No, Mom. I'm staying at school, for the art show. The art show that I really want you to come to. Ok?"

Allison spun away from the car and marched into school. Her mother hadn't promised she'd be there, but she hadn't made an excuse as to why she couldn't, and anyway, why wouldn't she come? This was the first time in a long time that Allison had expressed interest in anything, and it was so clearly important-for fuck's sake, Allison had almost been a different person since Mrs. Reese had asked her to be in the art show. Wasn't it just completely fucking obvious?

Didn't they see the change in her-the light in Allison's eyes and the spring in her step, and for Christ's sake the fact that she even bothered to look anybody in the eye should be a pretty big fucking clue that something was different, in a grand, wonderful way. Didn't they hear that she was talking to them all of a sudden-telling them about her day and what she was working on and how she felt?

I mean, unless they were just completely, actively (maliciously?) ignoring her, they had to see how important this was to her. How could they not see it? How could they not see her? Of course they would come. They were her parents and they loved her. They understood the importance of tonight. _They_ could see her.

* * *

><p>Allison's father picked her up at 9:36 that night. She was waiting outside the school, surrounded by a sea of parents and students and friends walking briskly from Shermer out to the parking lots. Her father pulled up right next to her, and she slowly reached out her hand for the door handle, resting her bare fingers against the freezing metal, enjoying the sharp burn of the metal against her skin.<p>

She hesitated, wondering for an instant what it would be like to not open the door, to not get in the car, to not go back to her house and to her parents who couldn't even be bothered to come to her fucking art show.

She could run away...She could go to India, to Africa, to Afghanistan, to the mountains, to the ocean... to anywhere but here. But, she was 14, and not very pretty, and didn't, at this moment have a whole ton of marketable skills. So, maybe the running away thing would have to wait a few years. _And, if her parents don't even want her, what would possibly make her think that anyone else might ever care about her? Want her? Help her? Love her?_

So, she got in the car and gently closed the door and leaned against it. Her father nodded in greeting at her, and pulled away from the curb, down Shermer's long driveway.

They drove silently for a few minutes, until her father reached out and turned down the Bears game that was playing on the radio. He smiled. "Hey, Allison, your mom left a bunch of those frozen pizzas we like so much

Allison was going to ask where her mother was, and what was so important that the woman couldn't spare half an hour for the stupid motherfucking art show, because, you know what, Allison talked now, because Allison was an artist and artists told people how they felt. Artists weren't afraid. She opened her mouth, and tried to force the words past the pressure in her throat-sadness and pain and rage and bitterness and fear all mixed into this long, grey scarf that pressed against her mouth, and held in her words. But she could talk-it just took her a second to get past the barrier of her own anger.

But her father didn't know that she was an artist now, that she wanted to talk now. He was used to his silent, slightly frightening daughter, so he just, as he always did, kept speaking.

"Your Mom had her book club tonight, down at Mrs. Erhardt's house, and I've got your pizza all set up. You can come catch the rest of the Bears game with me."

He reached across the darkness of the car and tried to pat Allison's knee, but she flinched away, crushing her body against the car door and shoving her fingers in her mouth, so he wouldn't hear her screaming. She bit down on her knuckles, but the faintest whimper of anguish leaked out of her mouth, spilling out into the space between Allison and her father. He heard it, because he flinched too, and swallowed audibly.

Allison reached out and flipped the volume of the football up, filling the car with the announcer's smooth voice, drowning out any other sound.

Perturbed, her father slowly brought his hand back to the gearshift, and rested it there.

They were silent for the rest of the drive home.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thanks so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you think! **


	3. Chapter 3

**Claire Standish: "Do you think we'll all end up like our parents?"**

_A Princess _

Every year, on December 2nd, Claire Standish makes her Christmas lists. She has 3 separate lists, and no, it's not because she's obscenely greedy and just _wants _so much that her lists spills over on to multiple pages and addendums and appendices. (Sometimes, Claire wishes it was just that she was this greedy little bitch who couldn't control her appetites and was just indulged shamelessly by her parents.)

Claire's parents indulge her shamelessly, but it's less because they love her and more because they kind of actually hate each other, and the yearly competition as to who can be the best parent with the best Christmas presents is a great way to demonstrate their enmity for each other, albeit in a polite, holly-scented sort of way.

So, she makes 3 lists. One is for her mother, and she asks her mother for clothes and shoes and underwear and scarves and perfume and hair products and nail polish and makeup and costume jewelry and bags and accessories of any sort. Claire makes sure to write at the top of the list how much she trusts her mother's taste, and it's not like this is a lie; her mother does have exquisite taste, and the woman takes her self-appointed role of being the best dressed family in Shermer very seriously. But Claire does this because she wants her mother to feel appreciated and respected, which is sort of an early Christmas present to her mother in and of itself.

She makes a second list for her father, and she asks him for books and a renewal of her subscription to Italian _Vogue, _real jewelry (with her exact size/chain length noted, so he doesn't have to send the housekeeper in to surreptitiously measure Claire's rings and necklaces, or, god forbid, ask her mother what Claire might like), outerwear, skis, a private phone line, a car and anything leather (belts, boots, wallets and gloves). Every year, he also gives her an obscene amount of money to spend at Arden's, and she's supposed to use it to take her mother, whenever Ellen Standish wants to go. Claire does use most of the money for its intended purpose, but her mother will never ask how much her father gave her, and her father will never tell, so neither parent knows if all the money gets spent at the spa, so Claire keeps some of it tucked inside of her huge reference dictionary, and likes knowing that it's there.

It's stupid, and completely unnecessary, because Claire's parents just hand her money all the time, and if she ever asks them for it, they fall over each other trying to get it for her before the other one can. So it's not like she needs to squirrel money away, and she actually can't figure out why she does it, except maybe for some half-articulated idea that if a cache of money was ever found in her room, her parents would have to _talk _to each other, about where it might have come from and how they were going to approach her about it.

But, it would probably take some absurd or worrisome event like discovering a pile of money in your 16-year-old daughter's room to make her parents really communicate with each other, which is why Claire has to make two Christmas lists.

She has to get the calculator out of her father's study to add up the totals of all the shit on each list, to make sure that neither parent is spending any more than the other parent. Unfortunately, the nature of the things on her father's list (skis, equestrian lessons, a car, jewelry) means that he's just going to have to spend more than her mother will. (And that's why Claire always adds, in her neatest writing, the little provision about how much she trusts her mother's taste, so that when Claire is still unwrapping her father's presents on Christmas morning, her mother can comfort herself with the fact that Claire's father may have spent more, but only because Claire doesn't trust him to buy the sorts of things she only trusts her mother to buy.)

Sometimes, when Claire is around her parents, she so much feels like the most grown up person in the room, it gives her a headache.

Anyway, there are 3 lists, and the 3rd one is kind of a private joke, and also kind of a private _fuck you _to the whole Christmas cheer thing that the Standishes are so good at gracefully faking.

See, when Claire was 7, she attended the Christmas party at her father's office, along with dozens of the children of her father's employees. The office manager had hired a Santa Claus, and had set up a table with creamy company stationary and crayons so the kids could write letters to the North Pole.

Claire wrote one (obviously she wrote one, she was 7 and even though she was naturally quite skeptical, Santa had always brought her everything her febrile imagination could dream up, which included a real live pony and a 2-story princess bouncy castle. Claire Standish and Santa Claus were on ok fucking terms.)

So, Claire wrote one, and because it was her father's company, Santa knew her name and asked her to come up to his big throne-chair and read the letter aloud. When Santa made this announcement, all the other employees quieted their kids down, and looked expectantly toward Santa's chair, but Claire certainly didn't get stage fright, so she skipped right on up.

She stood next to Santa in her green taffeta Christmas dress and asked him for a friend for Tiny, her pony, a bike, a trip to Disney, a new yacht because she hated her bedroom on their current one, Lassie, (the actual one, from the TV) and the entire stable of My Little Ponies. And then, because Santa had never disappointed her, Claire asked him if he would make her mommy and daddy stop fighting all the time. Because she didn't like it. It was too loud and it made her head hurt.

Santa froze, and Claire heard a shrill laugh that stopped abruptly, but Claire hadn't done anything wrong and anyway Santa always did what she asked him to, and Claire basically considered the matter settled, so she jumped down from the platform that supported his chair and headed to the refreshment table to get a reindeer cookie. She wasn't going to stay up there forever-it was time for all the other kids to talk to Santa. She'd finished.

* * *

><p>The fight her parents had that night was the worst Claire could remember; it sounded like a thunderstorm had barreled its way into their big, echo-y house, and her parents' anger reverberated throughout the whole of the house. Claire snuck down the hall into her brother Danny's room, and he let her fall asleep curled up next to him, his hands pressed over her ears, shutting out the storm.<p>

* * *

><p>Santa did not bring Claire Standish an end to her parents' arguments, even though Tiny the pony did get a friend and she got almost 200 My Little Ponies and they got a border collie who Claire could call Lassie if she wanted to.<p>

The fighting only worsened as she grew up, because while it got quieter it also got uglier, and teenage-Claire understood a lot more then little-girl-Claire. And, teenage-Claire was expected to take sides and to act as the go-between when her parents stopped speaking to each other entirely, and then, when the Standish family attended parties or celebrations or cocktail hours was instructed to forget whole days of fighting and pretend that her parents were picture-perfect and happy. It was a lot of work, and what's worse, it was absolute bullshit, but it was really the only thing her parents demanded of her: behave as if nothing is wrong, as if you, and we, and everything else, is perfect.

So, Claire makes a Christmas list for her mother, and a Christmas list for her father, and then she makes a third, which she gives to neither parent, but leaves in increasingly-conspicuous places around the house. The third list is a replica of the letter she wrote to Santa when she was 7, in which she asked that Santa bring an end to her parents' fighting, because it made her head hurt. She wants either parent to find it, (she has no idea what will happen but she believes that _something _will have to change) but the housekeeper always sees it first and folds it up and puts it back in Claire's room, and so, nothing does change. The Standishes celebrate Christmas and Claire gets an obscene amount of presents because her parents can't get it together to collaborate on a less extreme way to celebrate.

* * *

><p>The Christmas before Claire turned 16 was no different, except that it sort of was, in that it was a million times worse than it had ever been. They spent hours (literally <em>hours) <em>opening presents, sipping Irish coffee (her dad) Bellinis (her mom) and eating cinnamon buns (Claire, and Lassie the collie). Finally, when the last of the silver and crimson wrapping paper was tidied away, Claire stood up and began to organize her gifts into piles, abstractly thinking about which stack she'd carry upstairs first. Her mother excused herself to go check on the Christmas brunch as Claire peeled a bit of tape off of her pajama leg.

"Hrm. Hrmm." Her father cleared his throat, and Claire turned. He was holding his hand out to her, and tucked in his palm was a blue Tiffany's box with a crisp white ribbon. He smiled broadly at her. "Tiffany's did a limited-edition, special collection, for their centennial. And I thought, well, you're so special, so you deserve something special too." He wrapped his arms around her and Claire leaned her head against his chest, inhaling the cologne he'd worn for the entirety of her life, and the fresh-washed cotton of his shirt, and the _safety _that he meant.

Her father kept an arm around her as she pulled off the ribbon; she peeled open the lid to find a pair of princess-cut diamond earrings glinting on the baby-blue felt. They caught the lights from the Christmas tree and sparkled as Claire gaped at them. They were extravagant, they were luxurious; they were fit for a princess.

"Oh, Henry, you didn't! You idiot!" Her mother's voice rang out suddenly, and Claire almost dropped the jewelry box in surprise. Her mother stalked across the room, digging in the pocked of her monogramed bathrobe, and pulled out another Tiffany's box. It was identical to the one in Claire's hand. _Oh, shit,_ Claire thought. _She got me the same earrings. Oh, fuck...how do I pick which ones to keep? _

Claire's father gently moved Claire out of the way, so he could face her mother head on.

"Yes, Ellen, I did get her the collection earrings, because I get to buy her real jewelry. It's on _my _list." He smirked. "You'll just have to take yours back."

Her mother scowled. "I had the idea to purchase these months before she even made the list. I bought them the first moment they were available. And, I bought myself a pair to match, so you'll have to take _yours_ back."

"They're identical earrings Ellen! They _all _match each other. Yours are no different from the rest. But even still, it was my right to buy them, so she'll wear mine."

Claire flinched. She knew what was coming.

Her mother turned to her, a smile shoving the snarl on her lips out of the way. "Claire, sweetheart, whose earrings would you like to have? Mine, or daddy's?"

Both of her parents stared at her beseechingly, as if Claire's choice would settle anything, or fix their relationship, or even stop this argument that was threatening to ruin the holiday.

But how could she choose? And how could they ask her _to _choose, to make one happy at the expense of the other? How dare they ask her to be the adult, settling the squabble between two loud and angry children. She wanted to tell them: _Neither. I pick neither. I don't want earrings from either of you, if you can't even talk to each other civilly. And just so you know, if you ever do split up, I won't pick one of you then, either. I'll go live with Danny in the city and we will never talk to you again. _

But it was Christmas and she couldn't say any of that, so instead she plucked the boxes from each of her parents' hands and flipped one earring from each around, so an earring from her mother's box was now in her father's box, and an earring from her father's box was now in her mother's. She held up the re-arranged earrings, daring them to comment on any difference.

"I'll just wear one pair one day, and the other the next day. I'll wear one from each of you on one day, and the others the next day. That way it's fair." She paused. Her solution was horrendously, unfairly expensive, but it was a solution and it was workable, so her father nodded and her mother smiled again, and then they were back at each other's throats, even as the resolution to their argument sat in their daughter's trembling hands.

Claire walked out of the living room, leaving her cinnamon bun and her cairn of presents and her screaming parents. She climbed the stairs to her bedroom, thankful that the thick carpet in her room blocked out the noise of the fight. She'd asked for a plush carpet in her room for her 10th birthday-by then she'd realized that while Santa brought her anything she might imagine he couldn't bring her everything she _asked _for, so she asked for carpet and a canopy bed and that stopped the sound from traveling, which was enough.

She closed the door behind her, carefully turning the handle so it slid noiselessly shut, and sank down onto the carpet. In less than an hour the whole rest of the extended Standish family was arriving for Christmas brunch and more presents, and Claire knew than when the doorbell rang her parents would be their happy, united selves, singing carols and telling stories and acting as if the vitriol and violence of the morning had never happened.

Claire brushed her hair out of her eyes, and sighed when she realized that she still clutched the Tiffany boxes; she unfurled her fingers and rubbed the setting of one of the earrings. They were exquisite. Really, fit for a fucking princess, and nobody else.

She snapped the lids closed, and lined the boxes up on her thigh. _At least, _she mused, trying to find a happy thought amidst all the frustration and pain swirling around her, _at least if I ever lose one, or for some reason, give one away, at least I'll have all these extra at home. _

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Claire Standish: "Do you think we'll all end up like our parents?" **

_A Jock _

"I made it? I made it!" Andy Clark had never been this happy to see his name at the top of a list in his entire life. Sure, it had been thrilling to see 'Andrew Clark, Starting Quarterback' and 'Andrew Clark, Point Guard' typed neatly at the top of the cuts list of the Shermer Middle School Varsity Football and Basketball teams, respectively, but this was different. Andy knew that he was really, really fucking good at anything that involved a ball and a point system and uniforms; he was strong and quick and great with his hands and a natural team leader. So, it had been nice, but not at all surprising or unexpected, to look at those team lists posted outside the gymnasium, and immediately see his name.

But this was different. Because this time, Andy hadn't tried out for a sports team; he'd auditioned for the school musical. This year, Shermer Middle School was doing _The Music Man. _And, Andy Clark, to the surprise and consternation of most of the boys who didn't make the sports teams that Andy so easily led, had gotten the lead role. He would be The Music Man, Harold Hill. And, to Andy's delight, and mostly the reason he had tried out for the play in the first place, Melanie Carhardt was going to be Marian Paroo.

It had been enormously surprising to Ms. Devine, the newly-arrived 8th-grade English teacher who had _volunteered_ (actually, been coerced, by dint of her newness) to see Andy Clark, who hadn't really struck her as the type to enjoy, let alone audition for, musicals, leap easily up on to the stage during the auditions, and grin hugely at her. He was completely unafraid, standing in front of the dozens of his fellow hopeful thespians, and Ms. Devine was ecstatic when Andy, who hadn't realized he should have prepared an audition number, started to sing the Star-Spangled Banner. He had a strong tenor voice, and what's more, he was the perfect blend of true charisma and fake showmanship needed to do the role of Harold Hill justice, and Ms. Devine immediately wrote down Andy's name at the top of her cast list, and underlined it twice.

Obviously, it royally pissed off a few of the boys who'd believed they were guaranteed the role that Andy had won, but Andy Clark was a jock and hung out with jocks and ate lunch with jocks, and jocks were happily willing to pound the snot out of any wimpy little theater geek who said anything nasty about one of their jock friends, so the theater boys kept their mouths shut. Mostly. They couldn't help but snicker when Andy continually referred to the auditions as 'tryouts' and talked gleefully about how he'd made the 'theater team,' but they did their snickering under their breath, and never around anyone who might be friends with Andy Clark.

And, obviously again, Andy's jock friends gave him weeks worth of shit about suddenly showing an interest in musicals. _Musicals, _for fuck's sake, Clark, but Andy grinned and reminded them that as Harold Hill, he got to kiss Melanie Carhardt, and they would get to practice this kiss every day for the next few weeks, and you know, Melanie had been heard to tell Claire Standish that she was so happy that Andy had gotten the part, because, well, he was just so cute and nice. So, that tended to shut most of the jocks down, at least for a minute, while they thought about kissing Melanie Carhardt, and getting to do it every afternoon for the next month.

Plus, as Andy reminded everybody, it's not like being in a musical made him any less good at basketball or football, and anyway lots of football players took ballet lessons and finally, if anybody really wanted to keep running their mouth, Andy would be happy to set them straight, behind the gym, after school. Nobody took him up on that offer.

* * *

><p>When Andy got home from school the day he was cast in <em>The Music Man, <em>he practically danced up the 6 steps that connected his house to the sidewalk, so happy was he to tell his mother about this wonderful new thing he had done.

His mother was cutting up hamburger meat and onions and carrots to make meatballs when Andy skidded into the kitchen, but she put down her knife and pulled out a pair of kitchen chairs, and gave Andy her full attention. (That was one of his favorite things about his mother, that she always knew exactly what Andy and his brothers and sister needed her to be; she always knew what to say and when to celebrate and when to give advice and when to scold. She always understood them perfectly.)

And she was thrilled for him, and so supremely proud of him, and asked him to tell her exactly what had happened and what Ms. Devine said, and who else did she know that was going to be in the play? He got to go over his whole triumphant afternoon in minute detail, and he wriggled with pride andpleasure as his mother grinned at him during the whole of his recitation. Of course, she immediately volunteered to help with costumes or making programs or anything that Andy needed her to do, and he reached across the inches that separated their chairs, and threw his arms around her. She smelled mostly like Jergens hand lotion and her flowery perfume, but also today, a little bit like lemon Pine-Sol and onions, and she was so perfect and Andy was so happy in that moment that she was his mother.

She bent her head and kissed the top of his head and whispered, "I'm so proud of you, Andy. I know that you're going to do such a good job."

She let go of him, and stood, still smiling at his good news, and picked up the butcher knife and the half-cut up onion. "Well, my little music man, get upstairs please and clean up that pig-sty of a room." His mother gestured up at the ceiling with the onion, and continued, "Dinner will be when your father gets home, and your room had better be clean. Understand, mister?" Andy nodded, and zipped across the kitchen to the cookie jar. He grabbed a handful of chocolate chip cookies, and walked out of the kitchen, cramming the cookies in his mouth as he left.

"Andy. Wait." His mother called him, and he turned, wiping crumbs away from his mouth with his free hand. She smiled at the sight of him, but it was a distracted, nervous smile. "I just thought...are you going to, tell your father, about your wonderful news?"

His mouth still full, Andy shrugged an affirmation. Of course he was going to tell his father. Whenever he made a team or got a good grade or found out that a girl wanted to be his steady he told his father. This was good news too.

His mother bit her lip. "Well, maybe, wait, to tell him. I don't think, you don't need to tell him tonight, you know?"

Andy swallowed the rest of the cookies. "Um, why not, Mom?"

"Well, you know your father can be kind of, funny, about somethings. This, well, this might be one of those things."

Andy frowned. This didn't make sense. His dad celebrated winning. He glorified winning. He demanded winning. And, Andy _had _won. He'd beaten out all the other boys who'd tried out, and he'd gotten the best part. Yeah, ok, musicals were kind of girly, but he got to make out with the prettiest girl in school, and also, Harold Hill was kind of a badass, in a 1950s kind of way. His dad should be happy for him.

"Ok, Andy, here's the plan." His mother put her hands on his shoulders, and Andy relaxed a little bit. "We'll tell your dad, obviously, and he'll be so proud of you, but maybe we'll wait a little bit. We'll...buy the tape, the soundtrack of the show, and play it for him, and maybe I'll take him to a musical in Chicago, to kind of get him, warmed up to the idea. How does that sound?"

Andy nodded. He wanted to tell his mother that his father didn't need to be _warmed up _to the idea, but, again, one of the best things about his mother was the way she always knew what every member of the Clark family needed, and maybe Frank Clark needed to be _warmed up _to the idea of his son starring in a musical. So, ok, he would wait. He would tell his dad eventually. And, his dad would be just as proud of him as he always was.

* * *

><p>Almost a full month went by, before Andy Clark realized that his father still didn't know why his son was staying after school every afternoon, why he sometimes had to be picked up from school after dinner had been served in the Clark household. It's not like Frank Clark <em>ignored<em> his kids, or anything terrible like that, it's just that his wife was so good at seeing their problems, that Frank never really had to develop that skill. And of course, he was devoted to Andy's athletics; he left work early to watch Andy's basketball and football games, and spent hours in the basement with his son, teaching Andy the wrestling holds and positions that had gotten Frank a scholarship to Indiana.

Andy's mother didn't exactly discourage Andy from telling his father, but she also definitely did not _encourage_ him, either. Instead, she spent 6 hours a week at school with a team of other mothers, measuring Andy's classmates for costumes and character shoes, helping the girls with their hair and stage makeup, proving over and over again how proud she was of Andy, and how happy she was for him.

At home, when his father was still at work or out with his bowling league or playing golf on the weekends, his mother would run through his lines with him, forcing him to project them from the top of the stairs all the way down to the basement. She would corral his little brother and sister into the living room, and make them pretend to be townspeople and students and made Andy get his blocking down perfectly. She told Eric and Jenny it was a secret, like when they had made Daddy's birthday surprise, so his brother and sister gleefully refrained from telling their father about the play, and Andy's role in it.

But, not everybody in Shermer knew it was supposed to be [needed to be] a secret.

* * *

><p>10 days before opening night, as Andy and Eric were helping to set the table for dinner, Frank Clark burst into his house, shouting "ANDREW! ANDREW! WHAT'S THIS SHIT I HEAR ABOUT YOU AND SOME GODDAMNED PLAY?"<p>

Andy flinched, and his mother calmly took off her apron, and calmly told Eric to go upstairs and read Jenny a story, and if you ever say that word that Daddy just said, you'll get your mouth washed out with soap, do you hear me?

Eric tip-toed out of the kitchen, and Andy's mother gestured at the door to the hallway, letting Andy know it was alright, and that he needed to go and talk to his father.

Frank Clark stood in the den at the back of the house. It was dark, and Andy blinked as he stepped down into the den, already thrown off and kind of worried by the vehemence of his father's entrance.

Andy smiled, even though he didn't find any of this funny. _The best defense is a stellar offense_, he told himself. So. "Hey, Dad. Um, so I made _The Music Man! _And, I'm the lead role! Um, Melanie Carhardt is the lead girl, and that's why-"

"How d'you think I know about this shit, Andrew!" His father interrupted, poking his finger into Andy's chest. "Art Carhardt came and picked up his kid from school and saw you strutting around up on the stage in some god-damned costume, singing! SINGING, for Christ's sake, Andrew!"

"Yeah, Dad, it's a musical." Andy paused, then decided, _fuck it. _He grinned."Of course there's singing. That's kind of the point."

His father's bottom lip jutted out, and his hands clenched. He took a step toward Andy, and Andy pulled his shoulders back, a little bit afraid.

"You think you're too big now, for a slap on the mouth, Andrew?" His father lifted his thick hand, and let Andy look at it. "You think I'm gonna let you talk back to me now, that you're some god-damned little faggy fruit in a fucking play?"

Andy took a deep breath. Maybe the best defense was a good offense, but sometimes a good offense got you slapped in the face. "No, no sir. I don't think that." He paused, trying to find the right words to make his father see that this was something to celebrate, to be proud of. "Look, Dad, the play opens next week, and we've worked really hard, and I really want-"

"No. NO. No son of mine is going to get up on a stage in dress and sing songs. Absolutely not. You're done with this. You're my son. You're a Clark. You're _my _son, do you hear? You'll do what I say." His father looked frantic, like it was extremely, enormously important that everyone in Shermer, Andy included, understand that Andy's position as Frank's son made it impossible for Andy to be in a musical.

Outrage poured through Andy. The musical was like a team. And opening night was like the biggest rivalry game, ever. If he quit now, with so little time before the show opened, it would be the worst thing he could do. His father had raised him to be a team player, to _always _stick to his commitments, to never put himself above a team. Why couldn't his dad see that making Andy quit the show was just as bad as quitting a team?

Andy swallowed. "Dad. I can't quit. Clarks might not do musicals, but Clarks don't quit anything, either. I'm not just going to-"

"What didn't you understand, you little shit?" His father shouted, and Andy shut his mouth, more than a little bit afraid now. He couldn't remember ever seeing his father this furious before. "YOU'RE NOT A FRUIT. YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE IN THIS PLAY. YOU'RE MY SON. THIS IS OVER." Andy's father rubbed his knuckles against his temples. "Do you understand me, Andrew?"

Yes, Andy was a Clark, and yes, he was absolutely his father's son. He'd inherited his father's blue eyes and his father's athleticism, and his father's temper.

"Oh, ok, Dad. I'll quit the fucking show. And what should I do then? Should I _wrestle_?" Andy lifted his eyebrows, and forced some scorn into his voice. His father had been a champion wrestler in High School and college, and had the deepest respect for the ancient sport. "See, I dunno how that would be different than me being in a play. 'Cause rolling around on the floor in your underwear with a guy isn't faggy at all, is it, Dad?"

His father's chest heaved, and his hand shot out, closing tightly around Andy's bicep. He shoved Andy forward, and pressed him against the couch, bending him at the waist, and holding him in place. With his free hand, his father unbuckled his belt. _Oh shit, oh shit, oh, fuck me..._Andy's mind raced in frantic, frightened patterns, pinned against the couch by his father's hands, and by his own fear.

Suddenly, his mother was there, forcing herself in between her husband and her son, shoving her husband away from Andy, sheltering him from his father's fury. Andy was so relieved and so grateful for his mother, and in the next second, so embarrassed at the magnitude of his relief.

"It doesn't work, beating it out of him, does it, Frank?" His mother snarled, and Frank's hands slowly unclenched.

He shook his head. "No, it really doesn't," he muttered.

Andy, still hunched behind his mother, looked between his parents, terribly confused. It seemed like they were suddenly having a conversation that Andy was not at all part of, about a subject he didn't understand, in a context that he could not comprehend. It didn't seem like they were talking about him, anymore.

* * *

><p>Andy's father did come to <em>The Music Man, <em>and he smiled through clenched teeth, and told his son that he'd done very well, and he was proud of him.

Andy started Shermer High School the next fall, and added wrestling to his sports schedule, and thus didn't really have time for any more plays. Melanie Carhardt moved away that summer, when her father got a new job, and Andy wasn't really interested in doing theater without her, anyway.

* * *

><p>(His mother told him at Christmas that year, after hours of frenetic dinner preparation and several glasses of wine, that the Clark's holiday table was missing an uncle; that Andy's father Frank had an older brother, Billy, who left Shermer at 18 and had never come back. Now, Billy Clark was in New York City, <em>living with a man<em> and working as a theater critic for the _Times_, and Billy had refused to play sports in High School, and instead, had been in plays. Supposedly, his mother told him, Grandpa Clark had just absolutely brutalized Billy, trying to force him to put down his microphone and pick up a baseball bat. That's what your father's so afraid of, his mother told him. That you'll end up like his brother. That's why he's so happy, that you've stopped.)

* * *

><p>One day, when Andy Clark was 16, he was sitting in the locker room, at school, taping up his knee, and he heard Larry Lester gleefully telling one of his brainy friends about the auditions for <em>The Pirates of Penzance <em>that the Dramatic Society was holding that afternoon.

_That sounds like a really cool show, _Andy thought. _I wonder if the pirates are the good guys, or the bad guys. Maybe I could..._Except, no. Andy had wrestling meets every Thursday and Saturday afternoon, and practice every night, and once Melanie Carhardt moved away, the caliber of the girls who did school plays dropped considerably, so that wouldn't be a very good excuse. And also, it's not like Andy was 13 anymore and needed the excuse of stage directions to get a girl to kiss him. It's not like he had time, or there was a hot girl who was doing it too. It's just that...it sounded kind of fun, and he'd liked it so much in Middle School.

Except, no. He really didn't have the time, and his friends probably wouldn't be so understanding or so willing to overlook this idea as they were when everybody was 13 and hormone-crazed, and his father...well, Andy couldn't do it to his father.

_But, it's not fair, _a tiny, shrill voice echoed in the back of his mind. _It's not fair that he gets to do this, and you don't. That he get to go off to those stupid tryouts, and you don't. Fuck this. If you don't get to go, he shouldn't either, the stupid faggy fuck. _

Andy stood up, and picked up the tape.


End file.
